Higher School Certificate in:
Maths, Advanced Maths, Physics and French

1960 London University External Honours Maths
Completed course but didn't take finals due to pressure of
work

Employment:
1949-1952 The Royal Air Force. Commissioned and reached Flying Officer,
instructor at RAF
Officers Radar School
1952-1957 Research Assistant at Marconi's Research Laboratories, Great
Baddow
research on stabilised power supplies and Q Band Doppler Radar with
Peter Wright.
1957-1963 Scientific officer rising to Principle Scientific Officer at
MI5 with Peter Wright.
1963-1968 Head of feasibility studies on weapon systems at Hunting
Engineering Ltd, in charge of
six staff.
1968-1979 Started and ran Alpha Systems Ltd a computer software company
which employed 25
people and had a turnover of £200,000. Went into liquidation in 1980.
1980-1984 Started and ran a new company, Angusglow Ltd to bring to
market the COBOL
compiler bought from the liquidator of Alpha Systems. Successfully sold
on the Alpha Micro
Computer in the USA.
1984-1989 A new company Qufaro Software Ltd., formed to build a meta
language driven system
builder system, METASYS, for the IBM PC. Insufficient funds to bring it
to market.
1986-1989 After some consultancy work for the British Computer Society
as co-ordinator to the
Presidents Study Group on the future of the Society, chaired by Sir John
Fairclough of IBM, joined
the staff as Technical Co-ordinator to implement some of the
recommendations. Reporting direct
to the Chief Executive and answerable to the elected Vice
President(Technical).
1989-1993 Senior Curator grade, Manager, Computer Restoration Project at
the National
Museum of Science & Industry, the Science Museum, London. Working with
Doron Swade the
Curator of Computing and to the Head of Collections Management Division
(Assistant Director).
Restored a Ferranti Pegasus valve computer, an Elliott 803
transistorised computer and a DEC
PDP 8 all to full working order.
Started the Computer Conservation Society in November 1989, as a joint
venture between the
British Computer Society and the Science Museum. Organised a series of
seminars on early
computers and started Resurrection the bulletin of the CCS.
1991- With a small group of colleagues, started the campaign to save
Bletchley Park for the
nation. Secretary and Museums Adviser to the Bletchley Park Trust formed
in 1992. Appointed
Museums Director ( unpaid ) in 1994.
1993 Started the Colossus Rebuild Project to rebuild the Colossus
computer developed at Dollis
Hill in 1943 for Bletchley Park. Funded by myself and separate from the
Bletchley Park Trust.
1993-1996 status unemployed.
1996- 2011 status retired
and busy

Professional.
Soon after becoming interested in computers, joined the British
Computer Society, (BCS),
in 1965 as Associate Member, being elected to Member in 1967, Fellow in
1988 and Hon. Fellow
in 1996.
Elected to the Council of the BCS for the period 1967-70
In 1965 was a founder member of the Bedfordshire Branch of the BCS
and was chairman
in 1979.
A founder member of the COBOL Specialist Group of the BCS in 1972
and chairman from
1982 to 1985

Standards work: 1978-1985
A member of the British Standards Institute Working Group on real
time languages RTL2
and Coral. Involved with some of the early work on Ada. Also a member of
WG3 on COBOL.
Proposed a meta language standard based on work on a machine
readable form of the
COBOL metalanguage.

Papers:
"A compiler-compiler for COBOL on micros" presented at BCS 81
conference.
"Restoration of historic computers", joint paper with Prof William
Elliott given at the 1990
Australian Engineers History of Technology conference.
"The Colossus of Bletchley Park" in IEE Review March 1995

Lectures:
A series of lectures to the Advanced Programming Group of the BCS
including one on the
design philosophy of METASYS.
Lectures to the Computer Conservation Society on the Williams Tube
storage system and
visible record computers.
The Royal Institution Lecture, February 1996 " The Colossus
of Bletchley Park"
IEE Lecture on Colossus 1996
Lectures on Bletchley Park and wartime code breaking averaging one
a month for the last
ten years.

Awards:
Comdex IT Personality of the Year, 1998 for computer
restoration and rebuilding Colossus
The Royal Society of Scotland, Silver Medal, 2000 for
rebuilding Colossus

2006 Honorary Doctorate, Lincoln University

2008 Honorary Doctor of Computer Science, Middlesex University

Web Site:
www.codesandciphers.org.uk Set up my own web site with some
help from Andrew
Hodges.

Sports:
Fencing started at Dulwich, Captain 1948. Fenced for
Technical Division in the RAF.
Reached the semi finals of the UK Epee championships in 1960. Fenced for
Bedfordshire,
Captain, Bedford Fencing Club.
Motor racing, hill climbs. A number of trophies in saloons and my pre-
war MG.
Motor cars: My first car, a 1937 MG sports car bought in
1952 reluctantly sold in 2006.
Rebuilt and tuned engines including white metalling of bearings.

Engineering: Competent engineer in metal wood and electronics. Built
my own lath.
Designed built and patented a novel multi-satalite aerial system.

Hobby: Making things both real and virtual.

This page was originally created by the late Tony Sale the original curator of the Bletchley Park Museum